10. Nāthyoga in the Dādūpanth: The Ādibodhasiddhāntagrantha-yogaśāstra Attributed to Mohan Mevāṛau
The Sant of northern India describe themselves as going beyond the established creeds by seeking the unifying brahma-gnosis alone. Those established creeds they summarily call the ‘six systems,’ a term meaning ‘all religious systems.’1 Sant claim that they do not criticize others for the religious doctrines these may hold but for flawed ethical and moral practice that violate their own religious principles. Ethical and moral righteousness, however, they see as deriving from superior insight into the unity of self and supreme. This insight, the brahma-gnosis, they consider their own domain. This implies an emphasis on ‘interior religion,’ a term used by Charlotte Vaudeville to describe Kabīr’s religion and used here too as a shorthand term.2 While Sant authors advised their followers to stay away from debate about doctrine, they did of course engage in such debate. This is not only illustrated by this essay but also elsewhere.3 How profoundly they did indeed engage in debate is revealed by Sant codices compiled by monks and aggregating Sant and other material. Such codices represent aspects of the spiritual and exegetical interests of their makers, specific for time, locality, and lineage.
In the Sant tradition, such aggregate text corpora took shape first in north and north-west India in the hands of the Sikhs of Panjab, the Dādūpanthī,4 and the Nirañjanī of Rajasthan. The Sikhs were the first and took a special course. A text collection that would be conclusively edited as the Ādigranth is first documented around 1572. The Sikhs opted for closing the Ādigranth against additions.5 This development was sealed in 1604, notwithstanding the enduring polyphony of Sikh traditions. In the Ādigranth, the Sants (bhagat) represent conduits of the divine revelation running through Nānak and his successors. The Dādūpanthī took a different approach. At the turn of the seventeenth century, they canonized Dādū’s works and presented Dādū as the apex of a pentad of Sants. One may well assume that the way in which they canonized Dādū’s work was spurred by the Sikh efforts to create an authoritative scripture.6 Dādū and the other four Sants, either as a totality or in a selection, are represented in manuscripts that unite Sant authors and additional material. The Dādūpanthī manuscript tradition is thereby in principle unsaturated, notwithstanding the fact that Dādupanthī codices share a typical range of material that makes them easily recognizable as Dādūpanthī.7 The makers of the codices differed by the particular religious and intellectual profiles of their lineages, and these also changed in the course of time. Quite often, codices can be regarded as traditions in progress, for they may have taken a number of years to complete and thus reflect shifts in their makers’ interests. Compilers might copy manuscripts they had procured from other sadhus, add new material and, perhaps, eventually leave their works to disciples, who would add material of their own preference. It is such codices that amply reveal the profound engagement of Dādū’s followers with the traditions current in their lifetime and region.
In what follows, I wish to dwell on just one aspect of the codices, namely, how Nāthyoga figures in them. My textual basis is the oldest Dādūpanthī manuscript so far available, MS 3190 in the Sañjay Śarmā Pustakālay evam Śodhsaṃsthān, Jaipur, a bound, guṭkā-type codex of 692 folios.8 At least for its greater part, it was copied from earlier manuscript material. The codex was compiled between 1615 and 1621.9 Its compiler Rāmdās was a disciple of Ghaṛsīdās, a direct disciple of Dādū. He made the codex for the purpose of his own studies, as he states in one of the colophons. Though the bulk of the text was scribed by Rāmdās, another scribe or several scribes interspersed and added material. Rāmdās identifies himself as a Jat, and according to the local tradition, his guru Ghaṛsīdās belonged to the same caste.10 Ghaṛsīdās was a vairāgī hailing from Kālū (to the north-west of Pushkar).11 As his family is mentioned as organizers of a feast for Dādū—which must have taken place around 1596—, the modern Dādūpanthī polymath Sv. Nārāyaṇdās was probably right in identifying him as a householder–vairāgī.12 He became a follower of Dādū, and henceforth lived as a renouncer, taking his residence in Basī-Kaṛail, north of Pushkar.13 At some point in time he was also a member of the community of followers of Dādū at Fatehpur in Śekhāvāṭī, among which were prominent figures like Sundardās and Prāgdās Bihānī, both from merchant castes.14 The place and date of Gaṛsīdās’s death are unknown. This leaves open the possibility that the Dādūpanthī elites were made up from both the Jat and merchant caste milieu. Ghaṛsīdās’s main disciple was Nārāyaṇdās ‘Dūdhādhārī,’ who, like Sundardās, had been sent to study in Banaras.15 Rāmdās compiled his codex in two places, the first part in the ashram of Dūjandās in Īḍvā in 1615, and the second in Kaṛail in 1621. Īḍvā lies 18 miles to the north-east of Meṛtā in the Nagaur district and was Rāṭhor country. According to hagiography, the local patron of the young Dādūpanthī community of Īḍvā was a high-ranking Rajput named Narbad, who renounced the world and became a bhakta in the following of Dādū.16 Īḍvā and Pushkar form part of the ancient Dādūpanthī heartland. Dūjan was a vairāgī and managed the place where Dādū and his followers would gather on their peregrinations for worship and feasts from about 1596.17 It is thereby evident that Rāmdās was related to two of the several monastic lineages that established themselves during the lifetime of Dādū. Material from these he transmitted in his codex. Dādūpanthī script culture is older than Rāmdās’s codex. The earliest authenticated version of Dādū’s works is reported to have been installed as an object of worship in 1604. The Dādūvāṇī is a complex piece of literature, both in terms of arrangement and content. Its conclusive compilation must have taken several years. Dādū’s amanuensis and editor of the Dādūvāṇī, Mohandās Daftarī, is first mentioned by Dādū’s hagiographer Jangopāl for the period shortly before Dādū settled in Kalyāṇpur in 1601, so that Mohandās may have started compiling the Dādūvāṇī at the latest in the last few years of the sixteenth century.18 Moreover, not only were inspired songs and couplets written down fairly early, but so too was at least one exegetical work, the Anabhaiprabodha of Garībdās—the year of composition VS 1660 (1604) is given in the colophon of a manuscript.19
Rāmdās’s codex reflects that over the six years of putting together the manuscript he appropriated a wide range of traditions besides the particular Dādūpanthī pentad and other well-known Sant poets. The codex starts with the works of Dādū, followed by the works of Kabīr, Nāmdev, Raidās, and Hardās. Interspersed among these are a few songs by other authors. Upon this follow 150 folios with songs and couplets of authors typical of the region, but also compositions of Nānak. This is the part completed in 1621 in Kaṛail and prefixed in the codex to the part completed in 1615. In that earlier part, scribed in Īḍvā, Rāmdās focused on material containing texts on yoga. In the colophons of the individual texts these identify themselves as shastric. Starting with the Ādibodhasiddhāntagrantha-jogasāstra (spelling according to the manuscript; abbr. Ādibodha),20 the text under review (fols. 522r–534v), Rāmdās proceeded with the treatises attributed to Gorakhnāth and roughly equivalent to the text given by P. D. Baṛthvāl (though differing in the sequence of its chapters and also containing material that remained unpublished due to Baṛthvāl’s untimely death).21 Rāmdās’s is the first available manuscript of the Hindi tradition of Gorakhnāth. It must be borne in mind that the corpus of Hindi works attributed to Gorakhnāth and given by Baṛthvāl the title Gorakhbānī has come down to us first of all exclusively through the Dādūpanthī tradition, with the Nirañjanīs following suit considerably later.22 In the manuscript, Gorakhnāth’s works are followed by the treatises of the Nāthyogī Pṛthīnāth ‘Sūtradhāra,’ so that this codex may also represent the oldest now available manuscript containing Pṛthīnāth’s oeuvre. The manuscript concludes with some thirty-five folios of miscellaneous works that await identification, among these fragments of folios.
The codex thus complements the words of revelation—the padas and sākhīs—with discourses conceived in the spirit of the Nāthyoga that had moved away from tantric Shaivism and developed its own version of Haṭhayoga, which, however, blended with the form of interior worship propagated by the Sant. In these texts, yogic emblems and regimen are constantly validated in light of this so that yogic practice itself recedes. A similar development gained momentum in the Sanskrit literature on Haṭhayoga in the period between the thirteenth and the fifteenth century.23 A significant step in this is represented by the Aparokṣānu-bhūti, attributed to Śaṅkara, but probably composed sometime before the fourteenth century. This text teaches a Rājayoga in which the practice of haṭhayogic postures is reduced, though it remains, in that reduced form, considered obligatory for achieving the end of absorption in Brahman.24 That Rājayoga ranges superior to all other kinds of yoga is also expressed in the vernacular Sarvāṅgayogapradīpikā (3.13), which was written by Dādū’s disciple Sundardās.25
The presence of those discourses on yoga in Rāmdās’s codex shows how important it was for the Sants to reflect on their religion before the development of the closely related yogic discourses. In fact, the yogic discourse is constitutive of the self-perception of particular Dādūpanthī lineages. The advanced Nāthyogic discourses as they are conducted by the Hindi Gorakhnāth—critical of the tantric, magical, and the many exterior practices that form part of their legacy, and therefore discouraging that false yoga and extolling brahma-gnosis—are akin to the Sant principles. The Gorakhbānī, as much as the innumerable Sant compositions with their trenchant criticism of yoga and yogis lacking brahma-bhakti, reflects the transition of a more ancient Nāthyogic culture to Nāthyogic bhakti.
According to the classification of this and other haṭhayogic texts by their authors, the Ādibodha represents the first shastra known to have been authored in the Dādūpanth that explicitly calls Dādū the master of yoga and the perfect avadhūta. Inherently, this challenges all other claimants to these titles. Its emphasis on Dādū’s yoga of brahma-bhakti converges with the perception of some of Dādū’s direct disciples, who extol his yogic qualities and situate him in a spiritual genealogy with Sants and Nāths.26 The tenor of the Ādibodha was not unfamiliar in the early Dādūpanth. A case in point is the briefly mentioned Anabhaiprabodhagrantha of Garībdās, the son of Dādū, who became the leader of the sect after his father’s death in 1603. Composed in VS 1660 (1604), it may be roughly contemporary with the Ādibodha. The title of the text means ‘Enlightenment on the Experience,’ that is, of the luminous blissful state of union. The work explains and illustrates by synonyms the key terms of Sant bhakti. Though arranged like a lexicon of synonyms, the purpose of the text is to provide an itinerary to union. The terms—both from the Hindu and Muslim tradition— are arranged according to the stages of ascent as they lead to the unifying experience within the tantric-yogic esoteric body. It starts with the forms, colours, and tastes of gross matter, leads on to the progressive stages of realisation of the divine, and finally, to ineffable union.27 In the colophon of the manuscript that mentions the date of composition, it is called the Bhakti-yoga-anabhaigrantha.28 The terminology of both the Gorakhbānī and the Ādibodha is amply consonant with that of the Anabhaiprabodha.
The authorship of the Ādibodha was attributed by Sv. Nārāyaṇdās to Mohan Mevāṛau. Though the text itself names Dādū as its author, in deference to him and to give the text authority, the praise showered on Svāmī Dādū as the lord of yoga speaks strongly against Dādū’s authorship.29 That Dādū’s authorship was not much doubted is not all that surprising for his own compositions abundantly show the spirit of Nāthyoga, and particularly one unusually long yogic composition of his was made the subject of an early exegetical commentary (undated; second generation after Dādū?).30 Unfortunately, Sv. Nārāyaṇdās does not give a testimony for Mohan’s authorship. In view of that monk-scholar’s stupendous knowledge of the Dādūpanth’s manuscripts, I find no reason to hesitate to accept this ascription for the time being. The case of the Ādibodha is similar to that of the alleged Hindi works of Gorakhnāth. Attributing these to him, the Nāthyoga shift into the direction of nirguṇa religion was validated as authoritative. I know of two manuscripts of the Ādibodha; the one under review and MS 496 of the Dādūpanthī collection at Naraina, an old but undated codex of 398 folios which I have not had a chance to consult. In this, the Ādibodha is not grouped among Dādū’s works but towards the end (fols. 346–354), following the Gorakhbānī, a yogic treatise by Pṛthīnāth, a chapter of Jangopāl’s Dādūjanmalīlā, and preceding the Anabhaiprabodha of Garībdās. It is thus part of a cluster of yogic and hagiographical treatises. This accords with the practice of scribes to plan and pen codices more often than not in such a way that songs, couplets, and shastric compositions form discrete clusters.
Mohan Mevāṛau first appears as a disciple of Dādū around 1587.31 He was present at celebrations in Āndhī (Jaipur district) where it is mentioned that Dādū’s local constituency had formed a relatively stable group from the late 1580s and enjoyed the patronage of the merchant community.32 At a later point, another sub-lineage of Mohan’s settled in Āndhī where it was affluent enough to excel in public patronage.33 Rāghavdās describes Mohan as a yogi who reanimated a dead child using supernatural powers.34 In praising Mohan’s tantric-yogic miracle-working and the yoga of brahma-gnosis alike, Rāghodās’s account reflects the ambivalence of yogic ideals of the period. The ideal of brahma-gnosis and the popular expectation that saintliness must be proved by miracles, common to both Hindus and Muslims, coexisted and their inner conflict was well perceived. Mohan resided in Bhāngaṛh,35 where he also died. Apart from the Ādibodha, credited to him, he was the author of three more works, all of them on yoga. The lineage that descended from him, now expired, was also yogically oriented.36
The Ādibodha is a poem of 271 stanzas, the last seven of which (265–271) form an extended affirmation of the reward to be gained by its study (phalśruti). The text addresses ascetics. In the opening parts, they are admonished to shun women, wealth, meat, alcohol and drugs, and eat sparsely (vv. 1–3, 14). This is fairly common in treatises that specifically address ascetics, though it is hardly mere rhetoric. Aspirants of genuine yoga should consider the ‘sky,’ that is the highest stage of yogic perfection, their monastery (maṭha, v. 3; nāthasthāṃna, v. 14) which is, for example, in contrast with Haṭhayogapradīpikā (1.12–13), which enjoins the construction of a maṭh and describes its design.37 The Ādibodha was written at a point when the tantric Shaiva yoga had for a long time undergone transformation into a spiritualized form of Nāthyoga, which was also espoused by the Sant. The author had before him a regular organization of Nāthyogī, though this is not to say that this was constituted in the way we find it from around the eighteenth century. The still fluent state of organization is well demonstrated by the rivalling genealogies of Siddhas and Nāth as they were discussed by H. P. Dvivedī.38 However, all the emblems of Nāthyogī that we are used to, as well as their greeting formula ‘ādeś’ (Ādibodha, vv. 14, 251), occur as characterizing Nāthyogī.39
As in numerous early modern texts, the Rāval and his female companion, the Rāvalānī, occur as Nāth prototypes. They are tropes of the mind (man) and the life-energy, respectively. Rāval is distracted; forgetful of his guru’s instruction, he keeps gazing complacently at his Rāvalānī:40
He who assembles wealth and keeps a Raulānī, does not look for a guru but dies a fool,
Puffed-up he sits in front of the Raulānī, forgetful of the guru’s words. (v. 19, Baṛthvāl (1979), p. 178)
The Rāval, however, also represents the exemplary yogi. Alongside the sixty-four yoginī he figures in the chorus of those who join Dādū at his apotheosis (v. 234).
There is some ambivalence here, for in real life, the Rāvals represent a social group. Also known as Nāgnāthīs, they form one of the twelve modern subgroups of the Nāthyogīs.41 They seem to be related to the Lakulīśa-Pāśupata, transformed at some point into Nāths.42 There is a list of Nāth settlements in Rajasthan which was commissioned by Maharaja Mānsingh of Marwar in the beginning of the nineteenth century.43 Out of an all-India total of 676 Nāthyogic seats, about three quarters were counted in Rajasthan alone. Of these, seventy-one belonged to Rāval jogī, who were disproportionately highly represented in Mewar and Ajmer. The multifaceted image of the Rāval shows that the more ancient Siddha culture lingered on when the Ādibodha was composed, both in reality and imagination.
Dādū is extolled as the epitome of yogis engaged in the battle for brahma-gnosis. By disciplining his breath the yogi converts all that is perishable into the eternal light of brahma. As he attains perfection, this pours down from the baṅkanālī (the curved conduit) as a cool rain of fire. That fiery rain is the eternal drop (bindu) distilled from the vital energy through the yogic process. Henceforth and forever the perfect yogi, the avadhūta, tastes the rasa of imperishable life. The perfect avadhūta, Dādū, transmits the brahma-gnosis to his disciple. This teaching, then, is called the ādibodha. The yoga taught by the accomplished guru is based on brahma-bhakti. Yoga without brahma-bhakti, lacking the guidance of the guru and the right stance, is null and void:
(fol. 527a) … कोटि निगंम पढै ॥ श्रब मंत्रा रढै ॥ श्रब देव घरि पूजा कीजै॥ श्रब बिद्या धसी ॥ कोटि एकादसी ॥ ग्यांन गुरू विनां आत्म छीजै ॥१०५॥ कोटि सेवा करै ॥ दलं तुलसी धरै ॥ कोटि आचार करि अं(?)ग लावै ॥ जाइ बंनषंडं रहै ॥ मूंनि व्रतं गहै ॥ गुरू गोब्यंद बिनां त(fol. 527b)त न जावै ॥१०६॥ निति प्रति गीता रढै ॥ कोटि सास्त्र पढै ॥ गुरु सेवा बौ भांति कीजै ॥ अनेक कष्टं करै ॥ नष अग्नी धरै ॥ सत्य गुरू ब्रिना(!) ब्रिथा छीजै ॥१०७॥ गायत्री जापं रढै ॥ अनेक कव्यं पढै ॥ कोटितारंज जनेउ लीजै ॥ श्नान गंगा करै ॥ कोटि संझ्या धरै ॥ व्रह्म भगति बिनां प्यंड छीजै ॥१०८॥ अनेक छापां धरै ॥ अनेक तिलकं करै ॥ मंत्रमाला लेइ ध्यांन मांडै ॥ हंस बाना गहै ॥ इसी धरा बहै ॥ व्रह्म भगति बिनां नहीं काल छांडै ॥१०९॥ |
Let him recite a billion Vedas, let him recite all mantras, let him worship all the gods in their temples, Let him penetrate all sciences, let him observe a billion ekādaśī, without a guru imparting gnosis to him his soul wastes away. (105) Let him worship a billion times, let him hold tulsi leaves, let him practice and embrace billions of ways, Let him live in the forest, let him keep the vow of silence, without Guru Govinda he does not find the truth. (106) Let him recite the Gita regularly, let him study a billion shastras, let him serve his guru in many ways, Let him go into numerous austerities, let him hold fire on his nails, in the absence of the true guru44 he wastes away in vain. (107) Let him recite the gāyatrī, let him read many a poem, let him wear a billion-stranded cord, Let him bathe in the Ganga, let him observe a billion twilight rituals, without brahma-bhakti his body wastes away. (108) Let him use many printing-blocks (to print mantras), let him paint many marks on his body, let him circle the rosary in meditation, Let him wear the garb of a haṃsa (ascetic), let him drift in this stream; if he has no brahma-bhakti, time will not let go of him.45 (109) |
Yogic practice without a gnostic quest supervised by the guru is futile, but this does not automatically invalidate yogic practice itself. However, the references to this practice in v. 118 are selective and rather meant to point to its futility in the absence of the right spiritual stance:
(fol. 528a) . . . रेचक्रं पूरक करै कुंभक त्राटिक धरै ॥ केई नाद धुनि सुनि करि चित लावै ॥ केई करंम46 चाकी करैं ॥ अपांण ओद्रं भरै ॥ नाद अनहद बिना थोथ जावै ॥११८॥ केई सूर्ज ध्यांन धरै ॥ सुंनि खिलिमिलि करै ॥ केई गडंत उडंत गोटिक साधै ॥ केई दृष्टि अग्ने धरै ॥ ध्यांन त्रिकुटी करैं ॥ ब्रह्म ध्यांनं बिनां नहीं पंच बाधैं ॥११९॥ अनाद प्याला करै ॥ इष्टमंत्रं दरै ॥ नाटिक चेटक अनंत कीधा ॥ धातर सांइंण कंद मूलांइणं ॥ जोग बिनां नहीं प्यंड सीधा ॥१२०॥ बसि सीहा करै ॥ स्यंघरूप धरैं ॥ भैरव बीरमंत्रं चलावै ॥ मसांण सेवा करै ॥ कपाल आसंण धरै ॥ गुरूसब्द बिनां नहीं जोग पावै ॥१२१॥ |
Some perform the recaka and pūraka, kumbhaka and trāṭika,47 some listen to the sound of the nāda and concentrate their minds on it, Some make with their ankles the kūrma posture,48 some fill their abdomen with breath (apāṇa, from the rectum), without the unstruck nāda they fail. (118) Some meditate on the sun, bloom in the void, some have themselves buried, fly about, or administer pills, Some gaze into the fire, direct their meditation to the trikuṭī; without brahma-gnosis they will not be able to check the five [senses]. (119) Let them drink from the beginningless cup, let them recite the mantra of their chosen deity—there is no end to the shows that are performed! Let them consume a datura mixture49 and roots; without yoga, the body can’t be perfected. (120) Let him pose as a lion, let him assume the shape of a lion, let him recite the Bhairavavīra-mantra,50 Let him worship on the cremation ground, let him hold a skull and sit in a [particular] posture—but for the guru’s word he does not attain yoga. (121) |
In the yoga of brahma-gnosis, the significance of yogic postures recedes. Following his guru’s instructions, the disciple reaches a state thus described:
(fol. 529a) . . . मीच पांणी भरै ॥ काल रष्या करै ॥ बीजली छ्यांणवै कोटि आंधी ॥ मेघ अग्नी झरै51 ॥ बूंद हीरा धरै ॥ म्रितक जागिया ॥ जुरा बांधी ॥१४६॥ डाल औहटी चलै ॥ मूल बृषा फलै ॥ जड़ पाताल जब स्वर्ग जावै ॥ अग्नि सीचत रहै ॥ बाई मंडल गहै ॥ छेकि व्रह्मांड घन सुनि छावै ॥१४७॥ षोजि बंझ पूतं कढै ॥ तिसि बृषि जोगी चढै ॥ ते फल षाइ करि प्रांण जीवै ॥ जुगि जुगि ताली रहै ॥ गुष्टि मन स्यूं कहै ॥ अषै प्रकास तहां रस पीवै ॥१४८॥ सकल साधू जहां ॥ सिध साधिक तहां ॥ अषंड भगति धुनि सेव मांडै ॥ श्रब कां(fol. 529b)मं तजै ॥ व्रह्म नांमं भजै ॥ भगत भगवंत संमि आंन छांडै ॥१४९॥ मेरसिषर लहैं ॥ सहंस्र गंगा बहै ॥ न्रिमल नीर अंम्रित पीवै ॥ अमर आसंण रहै नाथ नाथं कहै ॥ दादू नाथं त जोग्यंद्र जीवै ॥१५०॥ इम साधू करैं ॥ बृष उलटा धरैं ॥ बिषम गढ षोजि अरु ध्यांन लावै ॥ ड्यंभ पाषंड तजै ॥ गोब्यंद नांम भजै ॥ भगति धरा जब मौज पावै ॥१५१॥ भगती साची गहै ॥ उलटि कालं दहै ॥ मन अरु पवन कौं बंध लावै ॥ पचीस साध्या रहै ॥ पंच तत्वं गहै ॥ द्वार नव भेदि दसंम जावै ॥१५२॥ गुरू मारग चलैं ॥ तहां भिष्या मिलै ॥ मंत्र धुनि भेदि व्रह्मांड छेवै ॥ चक्र लहरी धरै ॥ श्रब छापा करै ॥ द्वादस हंस सिरि तिलक भेदै ॥१५३॥ माल उलटी बहै ॥ ताल अजपा कहै ॥ छ सै सहंस ईकीस सोधै ॥ जाप माला फिरै ॥ भगत ऐसैं तिरै ॥ रोमरोमं गुंण मंन बोधै ॥१५४॥ भगति ऐसी करै ॥ अगंम बुधी धरै ॥ अनंत साधू संगि परस पावै ॥ गुपति गुफा रहै ॥ ब्रह्म बाचा गहै ॥ जैदेव ना(?)मां तहां भगति गावै ॥१५५॥ षट चक्रीं चढै ॥ माल अजपा रढै ॥ सुनि गुफा धुनि तूर बावै ॥ ररंकार सदा रहै ॥ नाद पूरा गहै ॥ रांमानंद [X]भगत कबीर गावै ॥१५६॥ |
Death is cast into the water, he guards time, ninety-six billions of lightnings and storms are there, The branches of the tree are gone, it bears fruit at the root when the inert netherworld goes to heaven, Fire waters it, it occupies the sphere of the wind, dense void spreads over the whole of the universe (brahmāṇḍa).54 (147) For all ages meditation lasts,57 he converses with his mind (man); where there is the imperishable light, he drinks rasa. (148) All sadhus are there, all siddhas and sādhakas, in perpetual bhakti dhvani-worship is held, He gives up all desire, he worships the brahma-name; because bhakta and bhagavān are identical, he gives up all else. (149) He reaches the peak of Mount Meru, a thousand Gangas flow, he drinks from the pure nectar water, His seat is immortal, he says ‘Nātha, Nātha!,’ and so Dādū Nāth, the lord of yoga, lives. (150) This is how sadhus act: They hold the tree upside-down, they search for the impenetrable fort and meditate, They give up pretence and heresy, worship the name of Govinda and are in ecstasy when the stream of bhakti flows. (151) He grasps true bhakti, upside-down he burns time, he checks his mind and breath, The twenty-five [elements of Sāṃkhya] become manageable, he grasps the five elements, penetrating nine doors he goes to the tenth.58 (152) He walks the way of the guru, on this he receives alms; piercing with the mantra that is dhvani, he penetrates the universe (brahmāṇḍa), The rosary circles in a reverse fashion, he articulates the ajapā and claps its rhythm, he understands the twenty-one thousand and six hundred,61 The rosary circles, in this way the bhakta is saved, he understands his mind with its myriads of qualities. (154) This is how he performs bhakti: He understands the inaccessible, along with innumerable sadhus he touches it, He stays in the secret cave,62 he obtains brahma-words; where there are Jaidev and Nāmā (Nāmdev), he sings the praise of bhakti. (155) He ascends through the six chakras, he murmurs the ajapā-rosary, in the empty cave the trumpet of dhvani resounds, ‘Ra-ra’ drones perpetually, he grasps the perfect nāda, the bhakta Rāmānand and Kabīr sing eulogies. (156)63 |
The perfect yogi is a link in the chain of precursors. In the sequence of the Ādibodha (vv. 155–190) these are:
(1) | the Sants: Jaidev, Nāmdev, Rāmānand, Kabīr, Raidās, Pīpā, Sojhā, Som, Aṅgad, Sen, and Dhanā; |
(2) | the mythical heroes: Nārada, Śeṣa, Sanaka and his brothers, Kapiladeva, Śukadeva (Sukhadeva), the seers ‘and others’; |
(3) | the avadhūtas: Datta, Gorakh, Gopīcand, Bharathari (Bhartṛhari), Machindra (Matsyendra), Lakṣmaṇ, Ṣaḍmukh,64 Garuḍa, Haṇvant, Carpaṭ, Nāgā Arjan, Kapālī, Hartālī, Kaṇerīpāv, Ajaipāl, Śrī Bālagudāī, Cauraṅgīnāth, Mīḍakīpāv, Jālandhrī; |
(4) | the Jains: Arhants, the twenty-four Tīrthaṅkaras, Pārasnāth and Nemīnāth,65 and all Jain lay devotees (sarāvaga < śrāvaka), |
(5) | the Muslims, including the prophets Jesus and Moses, the shaikhs, and ‘Mahelaṃma Salemāṃ’ (?).66 |
Dādū, the surpreme avadhūta and master yogi, is the crown of all of these. He has transcended the six religious systems as they are enumerated at the end of the Ādibodha: bhaktas, saṃnyāsīs, Jains, jaṅgamas, darveśs and pandits. The text’s concluding injunction (v. 264) is to strive for brahma-gnosis beyond the divide between Hindu and Turk.67
The focus on brahma-gnosis is well captured by the explanation of the Ādibodha’s title in the colophon: the brahma-śāstra from the mahāpurāṇa that follows the path of yoga composed by Dādū. Pṛthīnāth Sūtradhāra’s work in the same codex is also classified in its various colophons as a mahāpurāṇa with shastras as subunits.
The Nāth spirit of both the Ādibodha and the Gorakhbānī is marked by the long process of transition from the Shaiva tantra to a system going beyond sectarian boundaries. In their colophons, the treatises of the Gorakhbānī pay allegiance to Śiva (oṁ namo sivāī, sivāī), and ‘sivāi, sivāi,’ coterminous with the entire universe, is mentioned as the Nāth’s reverential exclamation in the Ādibodha too (v. 14). Śiva and Śakti are the binary principles of the universe. Śiva rules supreme in Śivapurī on Mount Kailāsa, where he sits merged with Śakti. United by the yogic process, the two are brahma, and as such are often named Rām, Hari, or Nirañjan, the latter name also figuring in the older Kaula tantric tradition. The primordial Nāth is brahma (vv. 14, 62, 97, 150, 172, 175), who resides in the interior (v. 14).
Conclusion
While the Ādibodha is clearly a Dādūpanthī text, the Gorakhbānī, first transmitted by the Dādūpanth, by the same token does not become a Dādūpanthī text. Rather, it represents the testimony of the sublimation of the Nāth tradition to a quest for brahma-gnosis as it was also pursued by the followers of Dādū. It was the result of a process not only parallel with, but also implicating, the Sant. There can be no doubt that both texts share the Nāthpanthī tradition as it has been documented especially by Gold and Gold, A. Gold, D. Gold, and Bouillier.68 The Gorakhbāṇī seems to be, however, quite detached from the context of a living Nāth sect or of any yogic lineages. It is rather a discourse beyond and above sect. It is interesting to note that the difference between the Nāth sectarian tradition and the tradition of the Gorakhbānī is also a contemporary phenomenon. Nāth-yogīs are usually not heard giving continuous recitals (akhaṇḍ-pāṭh) of the Gorakhbānī,69 though the poetry that they sing at bhajan gatherings is rife with esoteric terminology, as has been documented by Gold and Gold.70 My preliminary inquiry has produced only one recent instance of the continuous recital of the Gorakhbānī among Nāthyogī. This has over the last few years become a particular format of performance in Sawai Madhopur and draws a large audience, including a good number of Nāthyogī sadhus.71 Its promoters are educated lay Nāthyogī, who base their akhaṇḍ-pāṭh on Baṛthvāl’s edition of the Gorakhbānī!72
The conflict between the tantric Shaiva model of Nāthism and its new bhaktified form is reflected in the compositions of the earliest Sant who participated in that process. The way in which the sublimated, trans-sectarian tradition represented by the Gorakhbānī and also reflected in the Ādibodha was further negotiated in the Nāth sampradāya and between the Nāth sampradāya and the Sant calls for examination. The absence of emphasis on the physical aspects of Haṭhayoga in the Nāth sampradāya has been noted.73 Taking the discussion further, Patton Burchett followed the various positions of Vaishnava sects vis-à-vis yogic practice.74 The Dādūpanth was naturally marginal to his topic. I think that the Ādibodha is in unison with Dādūpanthī exegesis of the same period (Garībdās). However, the Dādūpanthī attitude was not uniform at all, and not all Dādūpanthī lineages emphasize yoga. Accordingly, to form a clearer picture of the diverse strands in Dādūpanthī tradition, one would have to examine individual lineages. Even then, writings and artefacts cannot be related directly to actual practice.75 Lineages were porous and traditions moved with their transmitters. This may seriously hamper conclusions. In spite of this, I believe that examining codices from particular lineages and not just using these as sources for editing individual oeuvres is a way to better understand the dynamics at work in a sect with a diverse constituency that, as the present example shows, constantly related to other forms of religion—the ‘six systems’—that it tried to surpass.
Abbreviations
Ādibodha | see Mevāṛau, Mohan |
DBh | see Callewaert (2009) |
DDP | see Nārāyaṇdās (VS 2035–2036) |
DJL | see Callewaert (1988) |
Gorakhbānī | see Baṛthvāl (1979) |
10. Nāthyoga in the Dādūpanth: The Ādibodhasiddhāntagrantha-yogaśāstra Attributed to Mohan Mevāṛau
Conclusion
Abbreviations